CST-Peer Support Specialist

Do you want to help someone with their journey into recovery?

Position: (Community Support Team) Certified Peer Support Specialist

Summary: Peer Support services are structured and scheduled activities for adults aged eighteen (18) and older with a diagnosis of Mental Health and Substance Use disorders. Peer Support is provided by Peer Support Staff. Peer Support services are individualized, recovery-focused that allows individuals the opportunity to learn to manage their own recovery and advocacy process. Interventions of Peer Support staff serve to enhance the development of natural supports, as well as coping and self-management skills. Interventions of Peer Support staff may also provide supportive services to assist an individual in community re-entry following hospitalization. Peer Support services emphasize personal safety, self-worth, confidence, and growth, connection to the community, boundary setting, planning, self-advocacy, personal fulfillment, and development of social supports, and effective communication skills. Services emphasize the acquisition; development; expansion of rehabilitative skills needed to move forward in recovery. Peer support is a system of giving and receiving help founded on key principles of respect, shared responsibility, and mutual agreement of what is helpful. Peer support is not based on psychiatric models and diagnostic criteria. It is about understanding another’s situation empathically through the shared experience of emotional and psychological pain. When people find affiliation with others they feel are ‘like’ them, they feel a connection. The service will support recovery, and the expected outcome will reduce the need for a higher level of care. This service promotes integration into the community at large, and self-reliance.

Minimum qualifications:

• Must have a high school diploma or GED equivalency.
• Must be registered as a North Carolina Certified Peer Support Specialist.
• 1 year of experience working with adults in with substance use and/or mental health disorders.

Program Responsibilities:

• Provide interventions for clients.
• Self-Help: Cultivating the individual’s ability to make informed, independent choices. Helping the individual develop a network of contacts for information and support based on experience of the Peer Support staff.
• System Advocacy: Assisting the individual to talk about what it means to have a mental illness to an audience or group. Assisting the individual with writing a letter or making a telephone call about an issue related to mental illness or recovery.
• Individual Advocacy: Discussing concerns about medication with the physician or nurse at the individual’s request. Helping the individual make appointments for psychiatric and general medical treatment when requested. Guiding the individual toward a proactive role in health care.
• Pre-Crisis and Post Crisis Support: Assisting the individual with the development of a personal crisis plan, and/or a Psychiatric Advance Directive (PAD). This includes help in developing the Wellness Recovery Action Plan (WRAP). Giving feedback to the individual on early signs of relapse and how to request help to prevent a crisis. Assisting the individual in learning how to use the crisis plan. Supporting the individual in seeking less restrictive alternatives to locked hospital facilities and Emergency Department evaluations.
• Housing: Assisting the individual with learning how to maintain stable housing through bill paying, cleaning, and organizing his or her belongings. Assisting the individual in locating improved housing situations. Teaching the individual to identify and prepare healthy foods according to cultural and personal preferences of the individual and his/her medical needs.
• Education/Employment: Assisting the individual in gaining information about going back to school or job training. Facilitating the process of asking an employer for reasonable accommodation for psychiatric disability (mental health day, flex time, etc.)
• Meals and Social Activities: To build peer relationships here eating is not the core activity offered. The focus of the meal in a social setting is skill maintenance and enhancement.
• Provide services in any location with the exception of the Peer Support staff person’s place of residence.
• Provide 80% of contacts face-to-face with the consumer.
• Review the service with recipient and supervisor (QP) for effectiveness every six months.
• Implement recipient’s service plan with recipient and QP (which is a part of the Individual Support Planning Process). This process must reflect the strengths, needs and priorities of the recipient.
• May not exceed 80 units per week of services to recipient.
• Receives monthly supervision from supervisor
• Generate appropriate daily documentation of services provided and submit in a timely manner as stipulated in agency’s policy.
• Attend required staff meetings and trainings.
• Perform other duties, tasks and assignments related to position as delegated by supervisor.

Benefits include: CEU access, Free NCI+, WRAP, CRP/First aid Training, Motivational Training, Cognitive Behavioral Training, Person-Centered Thinking Training, and more.

Job Type: Full-time

Pay: $17.00 - $19.00 per hour

Benefits:

• Flexible schedule

Schedule:

• Choose your own hours

People with a criminal record are encouraged to apply

License/Certification:

• certified peer support specialist (Required)
• Driver's License (Required)

Work Location: On the road